Great find! These lawsuits fall into a much broader trolling category. While these sorts hit corporations, another sort hit average Joes. For example, say you were not able to pay for an emergency hospital visit resulting in a lien being put on your house. Or maybe you trashed (overspent on) a credit card resulting in a lien. A sleazy debt collector will buy the debt for pennies on the dollar and then sue every single person with the lien. Then they tack on penalties, interest, and their own legal fees to the point the debt you couldn't pay is now 2-3x what it was.
If you blow off the lawsuit figuring it will just go away, which many do because now you have to add in your own attorney fees and costs which you likely can't afford, the troll will get a default judgment against you. Once that happens, they are allowed to take your house. I'm not kidding. They don't want your house, but they do ask for it and almost always get it. By that I mean they get a judge to order a foreclosure to pay off the lien and additional costs. At that point everyone begs, borrows, or steals to pay off the debt collector to save their house.
So how do you defend against trolls? You fight! They are after low-hanging fruit. Many times if you answer the lawsuit they go away. That's because, from their point of view, time is money. Why spend a year fighting a lawsuit they might not win, which even if they do win they might not be able to collect on?
Thank goodness we now have the anti-SLAPP procedure to shift the burden of proof to the plaintiff as regards freedom of speech rights. We should have a similar law to halt trolls.
- Jeff |
